Sebastian

Here is a catalogue entry from the NYPL showing the Sleeping Beauty films of Victor Jessen (1949 and 1950s, with Margot Fonteyn, Robert Helpmann, Michael Somes, Beryl Grey, Frederick Ashton, Brian Shaw and many others, including good footage of the classical dancing of Kenneth MacMillan): https://catalog.nypl.org/search~S1?/Xjessen+victor+beauty&searchscope=1&SORT=DZ/Xjessen+victor+beauty&searchscope=1&SORT=DZ&extended=0&SUBKEY=jessen+victor+beauty/1%2C4%2C4%2CB/frameset&FF=Xjessen+victor+beauty&searchscope=1&SORT=DZ&4%2C4%2C I understand these films were shown at the RAD and was just wondering if there are any ways of seeing them in the UK?

Here is an extract from the diary of the veteran of the London stage, the actor William Charles Macready, describing the audience at his performance of Macbeth at the Astor Place Opera House, New York, in 1849, an event which resulted in one of the worst riots in theatre history: "I went on; they would not let me speak. The roar of insults that greeted my entrance was so deafening, that the play continued in dumb show. Copper cents were thrown, some struck me, four or five eggs, a great many apples, lemons, pieces of wood, nearly, if not quite, a whole peck of potatoes. A chair was thrown on to the stage, another into the orchestra pit, which made the remaining musicians move out...I flung my whole soul into every word I uttered while all around dreadful deeds of outrage were roaring within our ears. The death of Macbeth was loudly cheered. Suddenly soldiers were brought in and began firing indiscriminately. Several people, at least twenty-two perished. And so it was with immediate haste, that I quit the New York stage".

These have gone back to the box office now.

As I am now not able to get to London for next weekend I am selling two great tickets for the Osipova show at Sadler's Wells for the evening performance on Saturday 15th September. The tickets are both in the front row of the first circle but they are not next to one another (happy to sell separately): A33 - £60 A2 (slightly restricted) - £25 E-tickets so easy to send. If you are interested please send me a private message as well as posting here, thank you.

I for one would be interested if he has any new discoveries regarding The Sleeping Beauty.

Teacher Nationale Balletacademie. Dancer Ballett der Deutschen Oper Berlin and the Dutch National Ballet (see https://www.summerschooldenhaag.com/teachers-2003-2017.html ) According to the (few) pages one can look at on Amazon, this book seems to be a work of imagination based on fact. How much historically new material Koppers has is unclear: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Conversations-Marius-Petipa-Brothers-Pavlova/dp/9090311106/

Thanks everyone for clearing up the serial muddles I unintentionally introduced into this thread (all would have been clear if I had simply posted the two different links but that is probably not allowed). In any case I hope this at least provides people with some interesting viewing.

Just to be clear, there is a copy of the 1973 recording which has been up on YouTube since April 2017 but this says it is 1hour 44 minutes long. Whereas the copy I was trying to point to only went up last week - and says it is 2 hours 7 minutes long and "complete" (which is why I recommended using that word when searching). I know no more.

(Too late to correct my typo so am reposting, admins feel free to adjust accordingly) The 1973 recording of John Cranko's 1962 production for the Stuttgart Ballet Company has just become available online. I won't link to it here but it is (at present) easily found by searching YouTube for "Romeo et Juliet, Stuttgart Ballet, Cranko, Complete".

The 1962 recording of John Cranko's production for the Stuttgart Ballet Company has just become available online. I won't link to it here but it is (at present) easily found by searching YouTube for "Romeo et Juliet, Stuttgart Ballet, Cranko, Complete".

Sarah Wise wrote an article for History Today (August 2010, Vol. 60 Issue 8) which looks promising if you can find it: "The Woman in White, A Novel for Hysterical Times". Incidentally Wise went on to do a book, "Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England", which reinforces the point about the cliché of the mad woman in white. Sorry about your foot, by the way.

Incidentally, another play from 1682 - John Banks' 'Vertue Betrayed' - has the heroine Anna Bullen, not going mad in white as such, but rather led to her execution "all in White" (as the text has it). Anna Bullen, married in the play to Henry VIII, is based on Anne Boleyn.

In 1774, the 19 year old Sarah Siddons won her first success as the wronged wife, Belvidera, in Thomas Otway’s 1682 play 'Venice Preserv’d' (Belvidera, it perhaps goes without saying, ends the play mad and then dead). According to contemporary sources collected in Hogan's “The London Stage” Belvidera traditionally wore a white dress for her mad scenes (though this was changed when Siddons played Belvidera again in 1782 - see Hogan, 5.1, 577 and 579). Perhaps “The London Stage” has examples which date from earlier even than 1682. The collection - covering 1660 to 1800 - has the attractive subtitle “A Calendar of Plays, Entertainments & Afterpieces, Together with Casts, Box-receipts and Contemporary Comment". Compiled from the playbills, newspapers and theatrical diaries of the period, it dates from the 1960s and is helpfully available online.

A couple more clues: in 1785 Mrs Siddons played Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene, not in traditional black but in white satin, which the press characterised variously as being so as to show that Lady M was mad at this point, and justified by her being in night wear. And here is Ophelia in white satin, albeit at the end of the 19th century: http://www.english.emory.edu/classes/Shakespeare_Illustrated/ET.Ophelia.html

Linda, well done for beating 1786! If we can now find whatever Sheridan had in mind (Ophelia's mad scene, perhaps?) we might yet trace this tradition to its source. In any case here is the relevant section (from Act III):- Puff. Now she comes in stark mad in white satin. Sneer. Why in white satin? Puff. O Lord, sir — when a heroine goes mad, she always goes into white satin. — Don’t she, Dangle? Dangle. Always — it’s a rule. Puff. Yes — here it is — [Looking at the book.] “Enter Tilburina stark mad in white satin, and her confidant stark mad in white linen.” “Enter Tilburina and Confidant, mad, according to custom.”

Here is a yet earlier example of a "woman in white": Nina is the eponymous heroine of Dalayrac's Paris opera of 1786 and then Milon's ballet adaptation of the same name, first performed, also in Paris, in 1813. Not only does Nina go mad, along similar lines to her many successors, but conveniently we have an illustration of the singer who created the role, Madame Dugazon, in her costume:- Any advance on 1786, I wonder?

Having been unable to get to any screenings of Coppelia, I am hoping to catch a repeat screening soon. However the Bolshoi website, although it promotes Coppelia, doesn't seem to list the show, not even the ones yesterday: https://www.bolshoiballetcinema.co.uk What am I doing wrong? I am sure the information is online somewhere but can't find it.

Ticket gone now

Apologies, only just seen this question. They are administratively the same organisation, but despite being in the same city, different people are allocated to the two venues and the corps are separated: https://www.wiener-staatsoper.at/en/artists/ballet/

Now can't use my ticket for the (nearly sold out) matinee of ENB Sleeping Beauty at the Coliseum on Saturday 16th June. I bought it ages ago as part of a package so only £14. E-ticket so easy to send. Please PM me as well as posting here.

Got one now, thanks MrFiz!

Yes please! I will now send you a PM.

Just to add what I already posted elsewhere, the conferences continue, with one in St Petersburg in November: https://serd.hypotheses.org/1684 By the way, is anyone going to be at the one at the Bakhrushin this coming week?

An update on this year's Petipa conferences. Here is the link for one to be held in November in St Petersburg: https://serd.hypotheses.org/1684

Just realised I could in fact get from this Wednesday's Swan Lake & Me Insight (6 June) to the first night of ENB Sleeping Beauty at the Coliseum so if anyone has a ticket they can't use any more, I'd be very grateful for it. If you can help please send me a PM as well as posting here. Many thanks!